Sermon Info
Summary
If you put your faith in the Gospel, you are redeemed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and your sins are forgiven. Praise our loving and just Father in heaven for that powerful truth! But, even once we’ve committed our lives to Christ, our imperfect and earthly nature leaves us open to lies and temptations which lead us into dangerous vices. Satan doesn’t leave us alone just because we’re saved – he aims to render us ineffectual at spreading the Good News and stop us from living lives which give glory to God.
Content
If you put your faith in the Gospel, you are redeemed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and your sins are forgiven. Praise our loving and just Father in heaven for that powerful truth! But, even once we’ve committed our lives to Christ, our imperfect and earthly nature leaves us open to lies and temptations which lead us into dangerous vices. Satan doesn’t leave us alone just because we’re saved – he aims to render us ineffectual at spreading the Good News and stop us from living lives which give glory to God.
The “seven deadly sins” are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. We all battle with one or more of these vices, and many of us know all too well how their chains bind us in our walk with Christ. They can visibly and dramatically rear their ugly heads as addiction, assault, and adultery. But, they probably don’t start out that way. They can lurk beneath the surface in our hearts, leading us into smaller transgressions and separating us from growing nearer to our Father.
Colossians 3:5 instructs us to, Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. We need to work to eliminate the sin patterns we allow into our lives. But, what do we replace them with? 2 Peter 1:5 tells us to, Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. Where we see greed in our lives, we should bring in generosity; where we might see envy, we aim for gratitude. To simply eliminate vices is good, but to live a life of virtue is desirable, in order to further strengthen our testimony to the transforming power of faith in Christ.
As the Apostle Paul wrote, God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life (1 Thessalonians 4:7). We are called to be sanctified… to grow in Christlikeness! We find hope not in our own willpower but in our God. If we surrender to God, He can refine us. By the grace of God the Father, thanks to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ who washes away the old, and through our transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we have hope in the ongoing battle against sin. We can find freedom from sin by restoring this hope.
In this series we’ll handle each of the “seven deadly sins” in turn, along with their corresponding virtues. As we grow in wisdom each week through our study of Proverbs, we will explore the hope we have to refine from vice to virtue thanks to our good God. We hope you will join us in finding the true freedom available to us through our faith in Jesus Christ.
